The Bar

Starring: Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox, Erika Anderson

Director: Stephen Hopkins

Writer(s): Leslie Bohem

Studio: New Line

Rating: R

Official Bar Score: 

This film picks up where Part 4 leaves off, and has probably one of the coolest concepts in history. We start the movie with a sex scene over the credits, which we find out shortly thereafter is our survivor from the last film, Alice (Wilcox), and her boyfriend Dan (Danny Hassel). We find out later that she has become pregnant with Dan’s child. At around the same time, the deadly nightmares of Freddy Kruger (Englund) begin to occur once again, this time occasionally manifesting themselves in the waking world. Alice soon discovers that Freddy is using the dreams of her unborn child to strike out and kill those around her, including her beloved, Dan.

Freddy’s plan is revealed as pure evil, once again, as he intends to be reborn to the world as Alice ’s child. In her dreams, she meets her unborn son Jacob, and tries to free him from Freddy’s evil grasp. As it turns out, the only person who can stop Freddy is his dead mother, Amanda Kruger, who we first came in contact with in Part 3. Alice races against time to find and release Amanda’s spirit so she can contain her son Freddy’s evil, once and for all. Alice eventually succeeds in freeing the tortured spirit of Sister Amanda, who goes on to defeat Freddy by taking him and his evil back into her womb. This buys Alice enough time to save her unborn son from Freddy’s evil plan, and she exits the dream realm victorious. The end of the film comes with a shot of Amanda in a great deal of pain, and Freddy’s razor-gloved hand bust out from Amanda’s stomach, proving that his evil is too great to be contained, and he is here to stay.

The idea of Freddy using the dreams of an unborn child to affect the reality of those around him is an interesting one. Very thought-provoking, and utterly creepy on so many levels. It also gave a new level of insight into Freddy’s history, and how he was conceived, as the Son of 100 Maniacs, when his mother, a nun, was locked in an asylum and raped by its inhabitants. The coolness of this concept propels this movie to the top of the Freddy heap, in my opinion, and is an absolute must see, whether or not you are a fan of Horror flicks. The Official Movie Bar rating for this one is 4 beers, so chug that last one down, go out, and check out this film!